Recipes and news from the makers of Zest Recipe Manager

It has been pouring and blowing a gale here in Sydney. It’s my midweek day off from paid work and I must say I am pretty happy (not to mention dry!) to be witnessing the buffeting behind glass rather than in the flesh as I had the two days before. However, our poor not-so-mini schnauzer Mozart is well and truly suffering cabin fever and being trapped indoors with a 15 month old is going to be trying too. Miss One has recently taken to walking but still prefers to have the security of a parental hand, so I am doing riveting rounds of our little 100 year old terrace most of the morning. I know I could escape by distracting her with toys, musical instruments and books (and heaven forbid, a bit of iPad “Animal Band” action) but I am mindful that my baby girl will only be this young once so when she is reaching out to be with me, I embrace and cherish her snuggling and nuzzling. So I have plenty of time to ponder life, food and other things while we sing “Wheels on the Bus” for the 31st time and walk around in circles.

I must confess that being a mum doesn’t always come naturally to me (or at least I don’t see myself as instinctively maternal, clucky, mother hen or however you would describe those women who are all that) but loving this little girl does. So while there are times I have to remind myself to relinquish the controlling/achieving side of myself and not worry that I am not getting anything done, I never regret the moments, the hours, the days when I am consciously present and engaged with this little person who is just a little pocket rocket of pure light, wonder and sweetness.

Relishing the day’s fate of toddling around with a little hand in mine, I knew I had to cook something with minimal preparation and cooking effort. Then I remembered — isn’t there all that hype about one pot meals, one pot recipes, one pot method, one pot this, one pot that ? …. Hmmm….actually one pot sounds like a great idea!

Now I am a visual person so thinking “one pot”, an image of dry spaghetti, meat balls, herbs and tomatoes all in a big stockpot on a Woollies recipe card comes to mind. That’s the inspiration for today’s creation. Pasta: yes! Bub likes pasta. So here is my stab at a one pot wonder!

So into a large corningware (you can use any baking ware with a lid), I threw half a box of fusilli, grated bowls of zucchini and pumpkin, chopped mushroom, a tin of diced tomatoes, tin of salmon (it is good to know that canned salmon retains all the nutritional benefits of fresh salmon while being more affordable and convenient!), and half a litre of milk. After mixing it all up, I baked it for 40 minutes at 175°C. Then I stirred in some bocconcini and parmesan cheese for stickiness and extra tastiness and baked it for a further 20 minutes (these cooking times are intentionally long to make the pasta extra soft for bubs so if you want it to be al dente, reduce the initial cooking time by 10-15minutes). And voila!

This is almost literally a hands-free recipe and the result was a tasty pasta dish full of essential nutrients for the dearest little person in our lives. It made quite a volume so I was able to freeze 5 serves.

Best of all, I can report that Miss One has happily demolished three meals in as many days and, as the texture is a little sticky, she found it easy to feed all of it to herself!

One pot wonder – salmon veggie pasta bake

Recipe Type: Main

Cuisine: Pasta

Author: Jane Sankey

Prep time: 12 mins

Cook time: 1 hour

Total time: 1 hour 12 mins

Serves: 6 large toddler serves

An easy one pot recipe full of goodness for the busy parent who prefers to spend their time playing with their little ones than stirring over a hot stove.

Ingredients

200g tinned pink salmon

1 small zucchini, coarsely grated

200g pumpkin, coarsely grated

100g fresh mushrooms, finely chopped

400g tin diced tomatoes

250g fusilli pasta

500ml milk

100g buffalo mozzarella (I used small bocconcini balls)

50g parmesan, grated

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 175°C.

In a large oven proof container with lid, mix the salmon, vegetables and dry pasta.

Thoroughly stir through the diced tomatoes (including juices) and milk. Place the lid on the container and bake for 40 minutes.

Stir in the cheeses and bake for another 20 minutes (again with the lid on).

Wednesdays are my midweek break from the paid job and the day I spend with my dearest, taking her to music class, playdates and preparing some food for the remainder of the week. This week I made another batch of Miss One’s favourite meals – risotto. I have made a number of variations but this one is purposely packed with a good variety and large proportion of vegetables to make up for Miss One no longer eating veggie purées.

If you are freaking out because of the reputation that risotto has of being a very challenging dish – do not worry! Bubs like their rice a little mushy so you can dispel the fear of overcooking it! I just call it particularly creamy :).

I always make a sizeable batch so that I can freeze about 5 meals and have one fresh on the night. It is a versatile base to add protein to or just as a vegetarian meal – a good serve of filling carbohydrates and multiple serves of vegetables in one. So for those busy weekdays when you are juggling a 9-5 job and baby care, it’s a great trusty meal that saves you from having a complete meltdown when you are already running late from work and definitely haven’t thought about dinner! I am all for guilt-free parenting so I love having nutritious backups for when I can’t dedicate the time.

Miss One has started to love peas (and often picks them out individually to eat) and so instead of smashing them like I have in the past, I am keeping them whole in today’s risotto. I call this dish “Veggie Patch Risotto” as it is colourful with the different types of vegetables — just how I imagine a veggie patch in a quaint cottage garden would look — pumpkin (orange), tomato (red), peas (green), zucchini (white/ green), onion (red). They say the more colourful the foods we eat are, the better they are for us so this should be super good for bubs!

Veggie Patch Risotto

Recipe Type: Main

Author: Jane Sankey

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 25 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 6 toddler serves

A simple, healthy staple for bubs that is suitable for freezing as well.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon oil

1 tomato, diced

1 small onion, diced

1/2 zucchini, diced very finely

1/2 cup frozen peas

1/4 small butternut pumpkin, diced

1 cup arborio rice

1 3/4 cup water

1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated finely

5 large leaves of basil, finely chopped

Pinch of salt (optional)

Instructions

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent.

Reduce to a low heat then add the rice and tomato and mix well to combine.

Add the pumpkin and half of the water. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, gradually adding the remaining water as it is absorbed.

Once the pumpkin starts to soften, add the peas and zucchini and continue stirring occasionally until rice is fully cooked and soft (approximately another 10 minutes). You may need to add more water if the rice dries out before it cooks through.

Remove from the heat and stir through parmesan cheese while still warm. Finish by stirring through the basil and adding extra seasoning if desired (take care not to add too much salt for bub – the cheese provides most of the seasoning you need).

I’m happy to introduce a new category on this blog:Baby Zest. You may have noticed a lull in activity on the blog last year: this corresponded with the arrival of our first little bundle of glorious trouble! Our own Miss One is now discovering the world of food, and we’re discovering the fun of feeding bubs. Jane is doing the bulk of the cooking for Miss One, so from now on I’ll be sharing the blog so you can get the story from the source. Over to you, Jane!

Hello! My name is Jane – an inexperienced mum of a beautiful 13 month old – and this is my first blog post. And it’s not even my own blog! I’ve hijacked my husband’s as I decided that Jason shouldn’t get all the attention just because he cooks for grown ups. I am charged with the very important job of nourishing our growing daughter who is increasingly turning into an eating machine, but one who can be a little hard to please. So for this blog, Miss One will be my taste-tester and I will only post recipes that pass her stringent tastes. Being a busy part-time worker/ most-of-the-time mum and otherwise lazy person, my recipes will be bang for your buck when it comes to cooking time vs results.

In the last month or so, Miss One has decided she is much too grown up for my homemade vegetable purées and baby meatloaf, so I have been introducing her to new foods that hopefully she would enjoy more.

Today’s recipe is inspired by the adult bolognese that she seemed to like the taste of previously but my aim was to make a more complete and healthier meal with plenty of vegetables. This is a very simple recipe and you can try any combination of vegetables you happen to have in the fridge – that’s how my combo of pumpkin and zucchini came about! This combo does work well though as they cook quite quickly, textures blend in and they (particularly the zucchini) takes on other flavours well. There’s really nothing bad in this recipe if you use a nice lean beef mince (a good source of iron) and a low salt stock (you could even just use water, especially for younger bubs). So it’s a good mixture of protein, iron, vitamins and bulk (from the pasta which will keep their bellies happy and full).

And most important of all. Miss One loved it! Nanna, tasked with feeding, while hubby and I whisked ourselves off on a rare lunch date, said she demolished it eagerly and looked just like one of those funfair clowns with the open mouths that you feed balls to. Yay! Taste test passed!! And she was happy to have a second helping at dinner! I served it with thin spaghetti (slightly overcooked so it’s softer to make it easier for bub to eat) cut up into very short pieces but might try butterflies or spirals next time to entice Miss One to feed herself.

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan on a medium-high heat. Add onion and stir until softened and translucent.

Add the mince and stir until cooked.

Cut the pumpkin into small cubes (adjust size to the age of your child but note it will be soft anyway). Stir the pumpkin into the beef then add stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for a few minutes until the pumpkin is starting to soften.

Cut zucchini into small cubes and stir into the mixture.

Add tomato and stir well to combine. Simmer for 5 minutes or until vegetables are soft through. You may want to top up with water to your desired consistency.

Serve with pasta of choice in equal portions of sauce and pasta. Vegetables can easily be substituted with carrots, mushrooms or eggplant with some adjustment to cooking times.

Eggplants are a great vehicle for many different flavours, but they can also be provide a unique flavour themselves using their own smoke. Cooking them directly over a flame burns the skin, permeating the flesh with that beautiful smoky flavour that you find in a great baba ganouj. I use that technique here to create a flavourful pasta sauce, accented with fresh oregano and the extra smoke of bacon then filled out with chunky zucchinis and squash. You can also omit the bacon for a vegetarian pasta which still packs a flavour punch.

Smoky Eggplant and Bacon Pasta

Recipe Type: Main

Cuisine: Italian

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 40 mins

Total time: 50 mins

Serves: 6

Ingredients

2 medium eggplants

2 tomatoes

4 cloves garlic, skin on

a good handful of fresh oregano leaves

1/2 lemon

5 medium zucchinis, diced into chunky pieces (or squash, or a mix)

250g streaky bacon (about 12 small rashers)

450g dried spiral pasta

2 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Quarter the tomatoes, then toss in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and a good pinch of salt and pepper.

Add the tomatoes and garlic to a casserole dish and place in the oven to roast until starting to collapse (about 30 minutes).

Meanwhile, prick the eggplants all over with the tip of a knife. Cook directly over a flame (e.g. gas stove), turning occasionally, until the skin is burnt all over and blistering (10-15 minutes). Add to the casserole dish along with the tomatoes for the final half of the roasting time (by the end the eggplant should be completely collapsed).

When the roasting has 10 minutes remaining, you should start to prepare the other components. Start by putting on a large pot of salted water so it will be ready to boil the pasta.

Next, heat the remaining olive oil in a large frying pan over a high heat and fry the bacon. When done, set it aside on a sheet of kitchen paper to cool, then slice into small strips.

Keep the pan on the heat, and use the bacon fat to fry the zucchini until just cooked (about 3-4 minutes). Set aside with bacon.

By now your eggplant, tomato and garlic should be ready. Remove them from the oven and set aside for a couple of minutes to cool a little. This is your cue to start cooking the pasta, which should take about 10 minutes.

As the pasta cooks, peel the eggplants, tomatoes and garlic. The skin should easily come away if they are properly cooked. Roughly dice and add them to a small food processor along with the juice of the lemon and oregano. Process into a sauce, tasting and adding seasoning as required.

Return your large frying pan to the stove on a low heat. Add the cooked zucchini and bacon so that it begins to warm. By now your pasta should be ready, add it to the pan followed finally by the sauce. Stir gently to coat the pasta with the sauce and warm through.

Serve immediately with a final touch of cracked black pepper.

Notes

This recipe involves several steps that overlap. The key is to make good use of the vegetable roasting and pasta cooking times to prepare your other ingredients.

You’ll need a large and deep pan to combine the pasta and sauce at the end, to save on washing you can use the same pan for the bacon and zucchini.